“I will put everything I’ve got into this and so will Joe [Biden]. But I tell you, the only way we can change is if the American people demand it,” said Obama. “We are going to need voices in those areas and congressional districts where the tradition of gun ownership is strong.”

“It can’t just be the usual suspects,” he continued. “This will not happen unless the American people demand it.”

Let me emphasize that central line again: ……”We are going to need voices in those areas and congressional districts where the traditions of gun ownership is strong“….. FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE !

(excerpt from Huffpo) […] The proposal, which comes at the end of a month-long review process spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden, is broken down into four key subsections: law enforcement, the availability of dangerous firearms and ammunition, school safety and mental health.

In an effort to touch on all four of those elements, the president recommended:

reinstating the assault weapons ban (under the new definition for assault weapons where all semi-automatics are considered “assault – See Fienstein Bill)

restoring a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines

eliminating armor-piercing bullets (also caliber restrictions)

providing mental health services in schools (and required reporting)

allocating funds to hire more police officers (federal)

and instituting a federal gun trafficking statute, among other policies.

The cost of the package, senior officials estimated, would be roughly $500 million, some of which could come from already budgeted funds. Because these recommendations require congressional approval, the administration is supplementing its proposal with 23 executive actions that will be taken immediately.

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health. (link)

Yes, this is the actual picture, “The Optic”, from today, that Obama wanted to portray.

“I intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality,” said the president, speaking about his full set of recommendations. “If there’s even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try.”

The approach is so sweeping that what would have otherwise been a headline-grabbing announcement received second billing. The president on Wednesday will nominate Byron Todd Jones, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to take over the post permanently.

In total, the proposal goes beyond what most gun control advocates were hoping for at the start of Biden’s review process, during which he held 22 different meetings with 229 different organizations and 31 elected officials.

“This is a monumental moment. It’s a long time coming and we’re thrilled the president’s putting the full weight of his office behind this,” said Josh Horowitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “We’re ready to push this thing through.”

But putting together ideas is the easy part. Selling them on the Hill will take a bit of legislative craft. (read more)

Just gotta paste his last paragraph here in case some folks don’t click through. I like his way with words.

In fact, the piling on by the political left, and their cohorts in the media, to use the massacre of little children to advance a pre-existing political agenda that would not have saved those children, disgusts me, personally. The second amendment to the Constitution is a basic right of free people and cannot be nor will it be abridged by the executive power of this or any other president.

You know what I don’t see here? Anything that would remove guns from actual criminals… you know…. the ones who actually shoot other people. Sure, mental health treatment/issues should be looked at. But these are very low on the list of who kills. Where are the measures/recommendations for removing guns from the criminal element? From keeping guns out of the hands of the criminal element? This is more shooting fish in a barrel and then claiming to be some great sport fisherman. Sigh.

Yup. And that is why normal Americans/conservatives are at a disadvantage in these issues. We are accustomed to using plain talk, and generally say plainly what we mean. Our domestic enemies do not do that; but what they have learned to use against us is our tendency to attribute to them honest habits of communication.

Our first thought is never that we are being lied to and manipulated…we’re learning. But we’re still pretty slow to cut to the chase. In our own circles, we would consider insulting the very thing that we must learn to do always: assume the worst. Assume we are being lied to. Assume that the person speaking to us means to do us harm and conduct ourselves accordingly, as the lawyers say.

That’s exactly right. It’s not only bad policy (I would say legislation but Obama can’t really write laws) but it’s harmful to America…and intended to be that way, but disguised by using children and feel-good words.

That will never happen just like nobody could have ever stopped that kid from shooting up that school. Criminals will always find a way to get what they want. Police stopped using the .38 special because the criminals had them out gunned. Obama should have thought about all those dooms day preppers there is no way they are giving up their guns. There is 1.4 million gang members in the US.

I can either shoot a 30 round mag, or I can shoot three 10 round mags…in about the same time, give or take a few seconds. In the Aurora shooting, his high capacity drum mag jammed, otherwise a lot more people would have been shot since no one else had a weapon. These gun-control people really have no sense of logic.

Brandon Raub is a former marine who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He made many posts of facebook that were critical of the government. Some of the posts had alarming language (vague descriptions of violence and pasting song lyrics to heavy rock songs) and he also made a facebook note that he called ‘The Truth,’ which lists what grievances he has with the US government. That note is supposedly the impetus for what followed: On 16 August 2012, Brandon Raub was handcuffed taken from his house in Virginia by local authorities and the FBI whereby he was taken to a mental health facility.

There was no warrant for Raub’s arrest.
He was charged with no crime.
He was not read his Miranda Rights.
He was not given a trial.
He was forcibly held in a hospital by the FBI.

Raub has no criminal history.
Raub has no mental health history.
Raub does not own a gun.

Communications to authorities by his family members were met with silence. For some time, Raub was denied communication with his family while he was in detention. While determining what Raub’s fate would be, the FBI and other government officials ignored Raub’s explanation that his posts were being interpreted out of context. On his first day of detention, the government officials involved ruled that Raub would be held for up to thirty days in order to undergo psychological evaluations–this was not optional.

Raub was first held at John Randolph Psychiatric Medical Hospital. On 22 Aug., six days after he was first detained, he was transferred to the psychiatric ward in the Veteran’s Hospital. A motion to prevent his transfer, filed on behalf of The Rutherford Institute, was denied. The next day (23 Aug.), a judge ordered that Raub be released, after being illegally held for two weeks.

People with alternative political views can now be detained with total disregard for the rule of law. With machinery in place like the NDAA and the recent Executive Order asking for further consolidation of these practices, like the story described above, things like what happened today are a great cause of concern.

Here are some of the more worrying orders.

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

All of these orders call for keeping tabs on people through the generation of informational databases with governmental agencies. ‘Mental health parity regulations’ is an incredibly vague and concerning phrase. What does this mean?

Consider the incentive structure that this puts in place. No one wants to be responsible for putting a gun in the hands of someone that later commits a tragedy. Most people who try to argue that there should be ‘mental health’ examinations, for the purposes of determining who the sociopaths are, have acknowledged just how difficult this task is. Why take the chance of clearing someone for gun ownership if it’s not certain? If that person is cleared and commits a crime, who’s first on the chopping block? The doctor that gave the O.K. for him to acquire firearms. So it’s easier to just deny the patient that right than risk potentially being prosecuted.

This is one of my criticisms of the FDA. No one wants to be linked to a drug that harms people. So FDA officials are loath to approve questionable drugs: if someone is harmed, the person who gave the O.K. on the drug’s sale is the first to blame. So these questionable drugs, that patients would like to try anyway, are outright denied, leaving the patient to seek elsewhere. Consider Beta Blockers: the story goes that these drugs prevent 250,000 deaths per year as they pertain to heart ailments. Beta Blockers had to go through ten years’ worth of regulations to get the O.K. from the FDA. Multiply 250,000 by 10 years, and the product is: 2.5 million people died that these drugs could otherwise have saved.

These executive orders are just continuing the trend between medicinal care and government. The winners of the trend are the agents of the state, the pharmaceutical companies, and the evildoers that actually do commit the tragedies (they are being granted a more and more defenseless populace to loot and subjugate to their growing power, just as the state is being granted a more and more defenseless populace to loot and subjugate to their growing power).

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of Obama with kids as he announced greater gun controls, and Adolf Hitler, who announced greater gun controls in the company of children:

In an interview with his lawyer John Whitehead, Raub said that the experience “made me scared for my country—the idea that a man can be snatched out of his property without being read his rights should be extremely alarming to all Americans.”

‘I’m starting the Revolution. I’m done waiting.’
‘Also, 911 was an inside job’
‘Your government evil. It is as simple as that. And the calvary is coming.’
‘veni vidi vici’
‘The Revolution is here. And I will lead it.’

His facebook page is able to be seen by the public, and can be visited through a link I posted above (at ‘The Truth’ note).

Apart from his views regarding 9/11, these statuses are variants of things I see, well, *here* at The Last Refuge every day, for starters. Even in ‘The Truth,’ which is supposedly *the* post that got him detained, he calls out (primarily) the Federal Reserve and the government for destroying America. His last sentence in that note is:

‘There is hope. BUT WE MUST TAKE OUR REPUBLIC BACK.’

Take our republic back… what a loon, right? He totally deserved to be kidnapped and imprisoned by the FBI.

The one thing on his facebook I see that is violent, in the days leading up to his detention, is the following *song lyric*,

‘Sharpen up my axe; I’m here to sever heads.’

If you call the above sentence a threat, you’d be surprised to know that most people who listen to rap/hard rock post lyrics like the above on facebook *everyday* without intervention on the part of the federal government. In fact, this lyric is pretty mild to what I’ve seen among my (ahem) peers (I’ll just leave it at that) and the majority of them are quiet people who like heavy music. Raub posted song lyrics and music videos regularly–posting lyrics on facebook wasn’t something he didn’t regularly do. Call me crazy, but I don’t see anything here that justifies his detention (without warrant, without trial, without communication) at the hands of the FBI.

I also think that you’ve totally missed the point I was making: The government is moving in a direction that allows it to kidnap people and forcibly detain them without any process whatsoever.

Except it’s not called ‘illegal detention’ or ‘violation of his natural rights’ or ‘destruction of his civil liberties.’ No. It’s ‘medical treatment,’ which makes what is obviously a violation of his rights totally medically ‘justified’. The NDAA allows this type of detention, the PATRIOT Act allows the government to, without warrant, track even the very keystrokes I am making right now. Raub was lucky some anonymous bureaucrat didn’t call him a ‘terrorist’ and detain his family as ‘associated forces.’

So we hear today that Obama is calling for greater informational databases on “potential mass murderers” by calling on psychiatrists to violate their hippocratic oaths to share information with governmental departments in order to deny their patients their second amendment rights on the basis of a judgment call on arbitrary criteria. In fact, the psychiatrists have every incentive to say that someone is unfit to possess a gun (no one wants to be ‘that doctor who gave [an Adam Lanza] the okay to purchase a gun’). And on what criteria? Good faith? Good judgment? Here are some tough, but probably common, situations to consider:

If I don’t think that I have a mental illness, but the psychiatrist thinks I do, who wins out? Do I get an appeal (and to whom) before I lose my rights?

What if I once took some pills for depression, but no longer do or no longer am required to–have I already lost my second amendment rights?

What if a doctor prescribed pills for me, but I did not take them–am I mentally ill?

As much as 20% of the adult population in the US can be said to have a mental illness (defined as having had a diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder (excluding developmental and substance use disorders) as of 2011.
110,000 soldiers are taking powerful antidepressant, sedative, and antipsychotic pills (if all these people are disarmed, where does that leave our military?).

Here comes the deception: we start with a criteria–whoever is ‘mentally ill” cannot purchase firearms. Then, we increasingly dilute the definition of what it means to be ‘mentally ill’. Then we take the guns from this wider pool of people, or prevent them from ever acquiring them. Then we prevent whoever lives with them from acquiring them–after all, Lanza’s guns were his mother’s name.

I think that today’s executive actions about gun control are just a step in the direction of many future ‘Brandon Raubs.’ And, to me at least, that is ‘legitimately scary’.

I’ve seen the song lyric defense before. I know a lot of music, and I would never know that was a song lyric unless someone told me that. For people reading his Facebook postings, it would be completely understandable that someone would read that and the other things he said and report him to authorities as someone who they felt was a danger to himself and/or others. When you post that the revolution is here, and you are here to lead it, and then you post that you’re sharpening your axe and you’re here to sever heads, I’m sorry, but most people would consider that to be a threat of some imminent act that he was about to commit.

I don’t know what the ‘song lyric defense’ entails (as if posting song lyrics indicates, every single time, what one’s “true” character is), but is it really that hard to believe that someone likes to post songs and lyrics on facebook? As I said above, it’s perfectly conceivable that someone who isn’t insane or harbor ill intent (such as a decorated veteran with no criminal/mental disorder history) listens to hardcore songs. It doesn’t follow that, because I listen to Snoop Dogg that I’m going to shoot up a neighborhood of thugs. It doesn’t follow that because I listen to Eminem that I’m going to set a house on fire or get intoxicated and drive off a bridge with my pregnant girlfriend in the trunk of the car. I wasn’t panicking for someone’s life when Michael Bolton was singing along to No Tears by Scarface in his car in “Office Space”.

Rappers and singers make songs about killing people–they’re paid quite large sums of money to do this. They have legions of fans who buy their music. Former gangsters and thugs make vast sums of money for regularly singing about violence. Not one of these people (the singers, the fans, the music buyers) are detained for merely being a participant in listening to music about violence. They aren’t arrested for posting song lyrics, because thinking is not (at least this used to be the case in this country) a crime. Not one of these activities is generally regarded as being suspect.

And the thing is, as I posted above and is made clear in those articles, Raub told his captors over and over again that that one post was a song lyric. This wasn’t a simple misunderstanding on the part of the FBI. It’s not as if they kept asking him what he meant and he refused to answer like it was some game to him. He continually explained himself. And he was deliberately ignored.

That post isn’t even the one he was detained over. He was detained (supposedly) over a facebook note (‘The Truth’) that complained about the Federal Reserve, the growing leviathan state, the need for “revolution”, and the need to take the republic back. Again, these comments are along the lines of what is regularly posted on this blog. Are there people here that deserve to be kidnapped and held against their will in mental hospitals? Do people here need to be treated as terrorists/criminals? What is in that note that is deserving of having his several of his natural rights violated? They treated him like a criminal, like a terrorist; except, there was no arrest warrant in his name, he was charged with no crime, he was not read his rights, he was not put through due process and the FBI held him at a hospital for a week against his will.

Maybe it would have been sensible to question him for a few minutes (as was done for about ten minutes… by the FBI) on the basis of a concerning post (that by most standards, kids his age would find pretty unremarkable), but are you really trying to justify his week long detention at the hands of the *FBI* with total disregard for due process? You’re not concerned that federal police held him for a week for having done no crime? It isn’t disconcerting that something like this—a clear violation of, at least, his first amendment rights—can be dismissed as “normal” because he’s called a mental patient rather than a criminal? It isn’t disturbing when someone’s treated as being guilty until proven innocent?

“If there’s even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try.” Really ????
Let’s examine that logic and see if it withstands honest scrutiny as being rational or realistic.
That is quite a bizarre cost vs. benefit analysis to apply to gun control laws which cause many more THOUSANDS of unnecessary and avoidable deaths by virtue of “gun free zones” and other blatant infringements upon the basic right of self defense that is a birthright and is only acknowledged (and not “created”) by the second amendment, recognizing that “gun free zones” disadvantage potential victims or even render them completely defenseless and make them “fish in a barrel” for criminals who know they will find “law abiding” (and helpless victims) in such “gun free zones”. There is a counter intuitive “ideology” which is represented by such stupidity as would suppose that “gun free zones” serve to improve “public safety” against “gun violence”. Psychopathic killers and calculating criminals prefer defenseless victims and are guaranteed to find defenseless victims in abundance in “gun free zones” …..because it is an OXYMORON both in its premise and its REALITY made a harsh lesson again and again that killers are not going to comply with keeping a presumed “gun free zone” …..”gun free” because of the gun they will bring with them to murder the defenseless law abiding VICTIMS which the LAW creates and provides as easy victims for the criminal or psychopath who exploits the disadvantage owned by those easy victims.

Prog stupidity at its finest is what is on display with the “gun control” ideology. Electricity could be abolished and it would save the life of the next person who may otherwise be accidentally electrocuted. But abolishing electricity would guarantee many more deaths than that one life which might be saved. The same principle applies to many other things where some element of danger resides, and yet a rational cost vs. benefit analysis must be applied to determine what is reasonable and what is not. The road to hell is paved with “good intentions” but there are very obvious “unintended consequences” which enter propositions where a very real cost vs benefit analysis does apply and certainly gun control is such a proposition. Progs tend not to be guided by honesty or common sense but are delusional for having unrealistic and unbalanced and impractical “bright ideas” which they need to take back to the drawing board. Whenever there is a tragedy, there is nothing really rational about picking some utility element involved in the tragedy and incorrectly attributing fault or “objectifying evil” as if that object is where is the problem needing remedy. If a school bus is hit by a train and fifty children are killed, it would be a tragedy of living in an imperfect world where there is no perfect safety, but there would be no outcry to abolish school buses or abolish trains for being “too dangerous” and being justified if only one life could be saved. There must be some kind of balance in “risk evaluation” when analysis is done, and clearly the problem in the mass shootings has been the common denominator that such events happen in “gun free zones”. The stupidity which creates such fictional pieces of real estate is about as stupid as to then also declare such areas to be “fire free zones” because all of the fire extinguishers have been removed from the walls in furtherance of the comforting delusion which some people may prefer to believe that there is no fire and that buildings from which fire extinguishers have been removed will therefore not be at risk of burning. Progs are delusional, they are not realists and they have no common sense, and they are unfit leaders because they lack depth to think clearly. The entire gun control controversy is a symptom of a larger conflict between persons who are rational actors and other persons who are not rational actors but are “ideologues” who have dumb ideas that blind them to REALITY. Those ideologues will steer the ship onto the rocks every time. Honestly I believe it is deliberate because nobody could be that stupid.

If there’s even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try.” Really??? Let’s examine that logic and see if it withstands honest scrutiny as being rational or realistic.

Ok…ban people from driving and using cell phones.
No texting while in a car…driving or not.
No more driving…too dangerous…just stay home.
Fill in every swimming pool with dirt prior to the coming summer.
Will that save lives? YES, it will. Will they do any of that? NO.

…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed unless there’s even one life that can be saved.

And even more strangely, not a single one of Obama’s 23 Executive Orders said a single word about not giving guns to Mexican drug cartels, or about ensuring that State department overseas security personnel are sufficiently armed to be able to defend themselves and their charges.

Unfortunately, proving a crime would not by itself put him out. Bill Clinton’s law license was suspended after the impeachment hearings due to his lawbreaking. But since the Senate did not agree to a trial, the impeachment charges were never used at trial.

I want hearings, too.

I only mention the House impeachment/Senate trial issue because it seems lots of folks misunderstand how that works, and keep calling for impeachment.

Impeachment may or may not mean a thing–all depends on the Senate. The current Senate would never allow a trial.

Richard Nixon had enough of a sense of shame to resign, once he knew the votes were there to get impeachment, and in his case, I suspect he knew good and well it would go to trial tootsweet, and he chose to avoid the public embarrassment.

Clinton didn’t care about the public embarrassment. This one has no shame.

I’d like to see him impeached, put on trial, removed from office (which according to the Constitution is all they can do). But I don’t see any of it happening because the folks who have the authority to make happen are all seated in Congress at the moment, not exercising their authority and not fulfilling their oaths of office.

“This is a monumental moment. It’s a long time coming and we’re thrilled the president’s putting the full weight of his office behind this,” said Josh Horowitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “We’re ready to push this thing through.”

(24.) Prosecute all persons complicit in the failed “gun-walking” operation, known by BATFE as ‘Fast and Furious’, to the fullest extent of U.S. Law. Extradite all involved to The Republic of Mexico, as demanded by that nation’s law enforcement, to stand trial for murder, conspiracy and weapons violations.

#19 should prove particularly handy when it comes to ‘active shooters’ in mosques. Would ‘active measures’ include assisting his Muslim buds when their guns jam and they can’t kill Christians and Jews? Whoops, there I’ve gone and crossed the line again.

He would make a great dictator for a banana republic. He’d drown in a rainstorm with his nose so high in the air. His habits are getting more annoying in every speech, like his dimissive attitude of others…”It’s just common sense that we have gun control. It’s the right thing to do.”…while looking down his nore at everyone. And his use of quantifiers, such as, “The majority of Americans agree with me.”

I forgot to count how many times he said the word “children.” It was like listening to a beauty pageant where all the contestants wanted “help all the little children of the world.” His act of concern for the children, and use of children in his press conference were merely attempts to fool the public. Nothing in his proposals will stop the wrong people from obtaining guns.

He did do a nice job of passing the buck onto congress…and pre-blaming them if nothing gets done and more people are killed by guns. He is quite the pathetic leader.

Going back to an idea from a few years ago, He spent so much time immersed in the violent and money-sotted transnational ‘ethnic’ drug culture of Southside Chicago I really wonder what His definition of ‘wrong people’ be?

“wrong people” in his world would be–those who don’t shut up and do what they’re told, and those who disagree with him, I’m guessing. Those who dare to think their own thoughts. Those who consider themselves, individually, free persons. That’s a starting point, at least…

The biggest gun violence of recent memory was the one he an Eric Holder orchestrated to discredit american gun dealers and help him advance his anti gun agenda. They had no regard for the lives lost. Where does he get off lecturing us while the blood of hundreds of Mexicans is on his hands. His audacity is like I’ve never seen. He should not even be allowed to discuss how to make children safer from gun violence when his history shows he could care less.

Not to even start on the abortion issue – “making children safer” while standing on the graves of untold numbers, indeed. I agree with you, Triage. Mexico is our neighbor – look how he’s treated them – like filth.

It’s so obvious that this is not about safety, but about control. This is the same tactic I’ve seen narcissists and sociopaths use countless times– appealing to our sympathy to get us to surrender power. Abusers do it. Con artists do it. Obviously they’re not the only ones. I vented about this on my site and included some links to discussions of what power the Executive Branch is SUPPOSED to have.